Step 1: To generate a few ideas for your paper, ask questions about the text:
How does Macbeth's consciousness of murdering people affect him?
Step 2: Determine themes or important ideas that are raised by the text.
Theme: Continuously murdering people gradually makes a person immune to guilt and more insane.
Idea: Insanity
Step 3: State how the theme or idea is evident in the text (this is your thesis).
Macbeth kills several people throughout his life to maintain power, and he feels guiltiest when he first commits a murder but gradually feels less guilty as he kills more people, and as he kills more people he becomes more insane.
Three Major Points That Support My Thesis
1. Macbeth feels deep sorrow and guilt after he murders Duncan. (His first intentional murder)
"What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red." (2.2.63-67)
2. Macbeth easily orders his servants to kill Banquo without feeling as much guilt as before, and afterward sees ghosts of Banquo.
"And with him - To leave no rubs nor botches in the work - Fleance his son, that keeps him company, Whose absence is no less material to me Than is his father's, must embrace the fate Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart; I'll come to you anon." (3.1.134-140)
The "dark hour" above indicates that Macbeth still knows this is bad.
"Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with!" (3.4.94-97)
3. Macbeth becomes apathetic about killing Malcolm's family and completely immune to fear.
"The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to th'edge o'th'sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do before this purpose cool." (4.1.150-154)
"I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been my senses would have cooled To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't. I have supped full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me." (5.5.9-15)
Thesis Proposal - Jenny Park English G
Step 1: To generate a few ideas for your paper, ask questions about the text:
Step 2: Determine themes or important ideas that are raised by the text.
Step 3: State how the theme or idea is evident in the text (this is your thesis).
Three Major Points That Support My Thesis
1. Macbeth feels deep sorrow and guilt after he murders Duncan. (His first intentional murder)
- "What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red." (2.2.63-67)
2. Macbeth easily orders his servants to kill Banquo without feeling as much guilt as before, and afterward sees ghosts of Banquo.- "And with him - To leave no rubs nor botches in the work - Fleance his son, that keeps him company, Whose absence is no less material to me Than is his father's, must embrace the fate Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart; I'll come to you anon." (3.1.134-140)
- The "dark hour" above indicates that Macbeth still knows this is bad.
- "Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with!" (3.4.94-97)
3. Macbeth becomes apathetic about killing Malcolm's family and completely immune to fear.